On the block between Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Olive and St. Charles Streets is the new Carnegie Central Library, erected at a cost of one million dollars.
At the corner of Locust and Nineteenth Streets is the handsome School of Fine Arts, which is connected with Washington University.
The Episcopal Cathedral, the Roman Catholic Cathedral, old and new, and many of the new Protestant churches in the West End are architecturally striking.
The parks of St. Louis are among the most notable in the United States, and their area (two thousand three hundred acres) is exceeded by those of Philadelphia alone. The finest are Forest Park (one thousand three hundred and seventy acres); Tower Grove Park (two hundred and sixty-six acres); Carondelet Park, O’Fallon Park, and the Missouri Botanical Garden, which is one of the foremost in North America.
To the west of Forest Park is the new home of Washington University, forming one of the most [622] successful and appropriate groups of collegiate buildings in the New World. They were designed by Messrs. Cope & Stewardson in a Tudor-Gothic style and enclose several quadrangles. The material is red Missouri granite. Among the buildings already completed are University Hall, the Chemical and Physical Laboratories, the Architectural and Engineering Buildings, the Chapel (resembling King’s College Chapel at Cambridge, England), the library (with a fine reading room), various dormitories, and the gymnasium. The university grounds are one hundred and ten acres in extent.
The other institutions of higher education are St. Louis University, the College of the Christian Brothers, Maria Consilia Convent, training school for nurses, several medical colleges, dental college, the theological seminaries, manual training school, the State School for the Blind, and the St. Louis Day School for Deaf Mutes.
In Forest Park, not far from the University, is the handsome Museum of Fine Arts, originally erected as the Fine Arts Building of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. In front of the entrance is a colossal equestrian bronze statue of St. Louis.
The great St. Louis or Eads Bridge, across the Mississippi, is deservedly one of the monuments of the city. It was designed by Capt. James B. Eads and was constructed in 1869-1874 at a cost of ten million dollars. It consists of three steel spans (center five hundred and twenty feet, others five hundred and two feet each) resting on massive limestone piers. The total length is two thousand and seventy yards. The bridge is built in two stories, the lower for the railway, the upper for the roadway and foot passengers. Trains enter the lower track by a tunnel, one thousand six hundred and thirty yards long, beginning near the corner of Twelfth and Cerre Streets. The highest part of the arches is fifty-five feet above the water.
The Merchants’ Bridge, three miles farther up the river, is a steel truss bridge, and was built in 1889-1890, at a cost of three million dollars. It is used by railways only. It has three spans, each five hundred feet long and seventy feet high.
St. Louis ranks fourth among the manufacturing cities of the United States. It is the largest tobacco manufacturing city in the world, and also has a large production of malt liquors, flour, boots and shoes, hardware, stoves, railways and electric cars, woodenware, brick, biscuit, crackers, etc. The city is also the largest mule mart in the world, and noted as a drug market.